2023 #48: Chaos at Carnegie Hall --Fiona Figg and Kitty Lane #1 (Oliver)

 

Chaos at Carnegie Hall by Kelly Oliver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I very much wanted to enjoy this book -- a music-centric cozy mystery with a fun heroine seemed just my speed, so I enjoyed this freebie on Kindle. Unfortunately, Fiona Figg is not Phryne Fisher (which was what I was hoping for) and at least for me, was a truly unlikeable character--fickle, judgmental, prudish, and a bore. She can't decide if she admires her fellow women ("I would be spending the night in jail with the best and brightest female minds in America") or whether her prudish sensibilities will rule the day ("I was glad when the luncheon was over. Mrs. (Dorothy) Parker's flamboyance was giving me indigestion.")

The book suffers from a lack of editing...how many times do we need to see cigars referred to as "foul"? How many times must Eliza be a little minx, or does she have "some cheek"? How many times do we hear that Eliza is not all she seems? When we are told for the umpteenth time, "But I suspected there was more to the girl than met the eye" it has already been revealed what that "more" is, at least in part. There are two references to Sherlock Holmes used as a quipped observation of two different characters in a matter of pages. The ending seemed a rather fantastical turn of events and I found myself rather sore at the protagonist.

There are moments of humor and the cast of historical figures lends some fun, when Fiona isn't busy judging them (outside of her murder investigation): Margaret Sanger, Dorothy Parker, Thomas Edison, etc. Eliza's character is fun, as is her little puppy, but I found myself wishing that she was the main protagonist. Sometimes the "Odd Couple" routine was a bit tiresome.

I realize this is the first book in the series, so I might try another since I feel the character(s) have a lot of potential to grow.


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2023 #47: Zoli (McCann)

 

Zoli by Colum McCann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had no idea what this book was about, but I needed a book that started with Z for my 2023 A-Z reading challenge, and I knew Colum McCann's work from Let the Great World Spin.
Zoli is a beautifully written book that traces the life and loves of a Romani woman, based loosely on Polish poet Papusza (1910 - 1987). Drawing from archival and authoritative sources (e.g. the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at UT Austin), McCann offers a narrative that bears witness to the history of the Romani people in how they were outcasts and exploited in the name of "advocacy". Zoli herself is a wonderful multi-dimensional character who must navigate and choose identities for her own survival. We see her as a child, raised by her grandfather, a young poet/songwriter--exploited and caught in political contexts out of her control, an exile and refugee both, and as an aging mother still determined to express her own agency.

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2023 #46: Year of Wonders (Brooks)

 

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It may be erroneous to say a work of historical fiction is prescient, but this 2001 novel took on new life in 2020. Based on the true story of the remote English village of Eyam that communally sacrificed itself during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1666, Year of Wonders is a miraculously beautiful novel. The characterization is rich and dimensional, with housemaid Anna Frith as a wonderfully developed (and developing) narrator. When the village rector convinces (most of) the village to self-quarantine from outlying towns, the loss is immense, but there is hope and growth and surprises. What is good and what is bad become murky and no one is immune from the challenges, even if they manage to stay healthy. The writing is extraordinary, wrapping in references to seventeenth-century village life and social structure without artifice. For all its graphic depiction of disease and childbirth, there is an underlying elegance which carries the reader along with just enough distance that we can understand 1666 to be 1918, or 2020, or whatever catastrophes we may face in the future.

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2023 #45 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Vuong)

 

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Novel" does not seem the most apt descriptor for this collection of prosepoetry. And no, that is not a typo. The language is reason alone to pick up this book. It is like watching a painter. If this is at the sacrifice of plot and conventional narrative, so be it. The language of this book is extraordinary.

And while there is not a single trajectory (really more a rhizomatic network of recollections and memories), we meet characters who embody truth in their realness, whether it is the protagonist's mother in her ability to be both mother and demon, the grandmother in her frailty and strength, or Trevor, in his sexual awakening and moments of tenderness juxtaposed with every red-blooded American masculine trope. Most of the characters seem to be reconciling (or not) the opposites within.

Where I grew slightly weary was in the sexual awakening passages. While written beautifully, I relegate that many words devoted to sex to a different genre, and don't prefer it taking up that much space in a "novel" where I anticipate some sort of narrative arc. The arc is there, but it is subtle, and the retracing of steps/revisiting of sexual experiences found me scrolling through the pages of the e-book a bit faster in places. Mileage will definitely vary on this front, so I offer this criticism in humility and with full acknowledgment that it is my personal preference.

As I said, however, I don't think I've ever read such a poetic novel and it is well worth the time to see how words can be briefly gorgeous.

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2023 #44 The Terraformers (Newitz)

 

The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In all honesty there were long passages wherein I never thought I'd give this book five out of five stars, but the plusses definitely outweigh the minuses for me. This is an incredibly imaginative, yet very real, book. Newitz has a gift for world-making, but also weaves in extended metaphors that are occasionally heavy-handed, but too relevant to ignore. In some ways, there’s a sense that we are all part of some cosmic and cyclical raison d’etre to build and destroy and rebuild. On the other hand, there’s also a hope for taking two steps forward without the compulsory step back.

Fans of Octavia Butler's Earthseed series (e.g. Parable of the Sower ) will appreciate the "ERT" (Environmental Rescue Team) for its idealism in a dystopic context. The characters are diverse in shape, gender identity, hominid status, and Newitz challenges the idea of human vs. animal. Frustratingly, however, just as one gets attached to characters the story shifts forward in time. This is effective in demonstrating generational legacy, but leaves a hollow space, particularly in the case of the first protagonist, Destry, and her friends in La Ronge. This was a similar complaint I had of Olivia Wolfgang-Smith's Glassworks, but The Terraformers works better in terms of continuity as it serves a larger statement about some inevitabilities of humankind. Despite the darker conclusions, the book is hopeful in some ways as well, not completely reliant upon dystopic tropes of ecological demise.

The acknowledgments are an inspiration--Newitz did their homework. While I don't have the expertise to fact check every idea in the book, it is rich with vision and foresight. Newitz asks us "what if" with just enough verisimilitude that we want to seek out the answer.

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2023 #43 The Long Call --Two Rivers #1 (Cleeves)

 

The Long Call by Ann Cleeves
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As a long time fan of the series Vera, I was eager to read my first Ann Cleeves mystery! I deliberately chose this newer series (Two Rivers) with a new sleuth (Matthew Venn) because I didn't want to run into a story that I've already seen in the series Vera, and I wanted an untainted introduction to Cleeves's latest detective.

It took awhile to engage with it, although I recognize it is a difficult thing to introduce all new characters. Everything picks up speed in the last 15% of the book, but it is more procedural than thriller or suspense otherwise. Matthew is a troubled male detective with baggage and trauma and self-esteem issues, but is quietly competent. It is a shame that he has to get hit over the head for everything to become clear. Refreshing, on the other hand, is that he is a married gay man.

Some of the characters were a bit uneven and cloying. Cleeves offers some strong commentary on the power of abuse, and we even see how that abuse can be internalized. Some characters have an uneven presence--we meet Gaby early on, who seems so important as a flatmate of the victim, and then there's a big reveal, and then? Nothing. A final scene with Matthew and Gaby would have come full circle.

There are some interesting themes: parental relationships (Maurice and Lucy, Matthew and his dead father, Matthew and his mother, Jonathan and his folks, Caroline and her father), and bird imagery plays a significant role (the title of the book, for example).

There's an editing error wherein a character is given the wrong last name in one instance, which I'd have more tolerance for if it weren't such a procedural where one needs to keep track of all the various dramatis personae.

I'm intrigued enough to venture forth in the series, but I don't see myself following Matthew Venn for long unless he gets a bit more chutzpah, not just when confronting his own demons and traumas.

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2023 #42 Tranquility by Tuesday (Vanderkam)

 

Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters by Laura Vanderkam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Importantly, the four star rating is for the content, NOT the mode of delivery. If you do not need to listen to this as an audio book, I would highly recommend buying it in hard copy for several reasons. Each chapter is very formulaic in structure, but the "Your Turn" sections will be more effective if in a workbook mode (hard to do with an audiobook). Vanderkam has a pleasant voice, but one can only emote so much when reading numbered listicles and anecdotes. There probably is a more engaging way to convey the material, and at times the delivery sounded like AI generated text to voice, and the enthusiasm behind the directives started to sound mechanical as well.

All of that aside, there is some really good advice and the participant responses are helpful to a point. The book looks at each of Vanderkam's 9 rules (outlined on her website but given in brief here):

Give yourself a bedtime
Plan on Fridays
Move by 3pm
Three times a week is a habit
Create a back-up slot
One big adventure, one little adventure
Take one night for you
Batch the little things
Effortful before Effortless

One of the overarching points that seems to be at the root of all the suggestions is to have increased awareness of one's own energy, and let it be the guide when determining what commitments we make. This was particularly useful in Rule 8: Batch the Little Things. Initially it feels like the opposite of a GTD (Getting Things Done (TM)) approach in some sense although really more of a recontextualization of an Inbox review. The emphasis here is on the "capture" mechanism that GTDers will recognize, rather than doing the little thing right at that moment. A good way to think about it is if doing an inbox review, the little actionable things go to a "Batch List" rather than a "Do it" if less than 2 minutes. I appreciated this because it acknowledges who hopping into email to answer something quickly can easily derail the bigger more important thing you are doing/about to do. Vanderkam says a two minute task can easily turn into: a "task hydra", a rabbit hole, or a procrastination cycle wherein you start doing a bunch of small tasks because now you are at the computer. Immediate reward supplants the longer term gain, in other words. She provides further guidance: Don't batch during your most productive hours, but set time aside maybe in the dip of the afternoon when your mental faculties aren't as energized and fresh.

Along similar lines, Rule 9 (Effortful vs. Effortless). Vanderkam encourages using pockets of leisure time (or even time confetti, a term coined by Brigid Schulte) for something more engaging like reading, rather than mindless social media scrolling. It isn't that she is suggesting one always read in lieu of social media, but to consider the more "effortful fun" first for a larger reward--working toward completing a book, for example. You will never reach the end of Instagram, she reminds us.

The narration of the study occupies too much space, and would have been more interesting if something had failed. While the narrative incorporates participant struggles, it starts to get tedious having the same structure applied to every chapter. While the book could have been shorter, it is still a worthwhile read, especially if you are skeptical in reading the list above. She does include anecdotes from participants who were initially reluctant or were immediate naysayers, and that did address my own reaction from time to time.

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